


Laura & Derek: Witch (or Whatever Supernatural Creature You Need Hunted) Hunters

by AngeNoir



Category: Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters (2013), Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst and Humor, Hurt/Comfort, Implied Childhood Sexual Abuse, M/M, Past Child Abuse, Past Torture
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-12-16
Updated: 2013-12-16
Packaged: 2018-01-04 19:50:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,894
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1085035
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AngeNoir/pseuds/AngeNoir
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He’d learned his most important life lessons when he was nine years old, standing in front of an iron stove and watching an old woman burn just long enough to be certain that she was dead, Laura standing next to him, fingers entwined with his, bloodied and fangs stained red, and then running before the apprentice could return. First thing he learned, of course, was that when a safe haven appeared it was never anything but a trap, no matter how hungry you got. And second, witches could be harmed in many ways – but the only sure way to destroy a witch was with fire.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Laura & Derek: Witch (or Whatever Supernatural Creature You Need Hunted) Hunters

**Author's Note:**

> This is because I am a horrible procrastinator who procrastinates, but the second chapter is 95% written - it's just the last action sequence that's giving me difficulty. So. Within the next three or four days, it should be up (because I really do need to finish my final papers I cannot keep ignoring them).
> 
> My unbelievably patient and amazing artist is the amazing [ArtisticJv2](http://artisticjv2.deviantart.com) who was much better at staying on top of things than I am and I apologize having to put up with me. The picture is embedded in the story below, but you can also find it (and other amazing works of art) [here](http://artisticjv2.deviantart.com/art/Laura-and-Derek-Witch-Hunters-419901512?ga_submit_new=10%253A1387088668).

His memories of those years under the witch’s spell were a bit hazy, in part because of the fact that he was _under a witch’s spell_ , but he remembered the night he and his sister had found that house and sealed their fate. He remembered a large farm house set deep in the forest, full of laughing faces and teasing and shouts and shrieks until their father came home one night, face solemn. Immediately, all the children had been sent upstairs as the adults gathered in the parlor. Derek could remember crouching next to the banisters, his cousins and his younger sister and his older sister and his older brother all around him, all of them straining with wolf-sharp ears to hear the whispered conversation. None of them could; or, at least, if some of them had, none of them had had time to inform Derek, not before the adults came hurrying out.

“Take them into the woods,” their mother said, hair unbound and eyes wild, strong and proud, but there was fear there that made Derek shiver and clutch at Laura all the more. Now, he couldn’t remember what their mother looked like, couldn’t remember hair or eye color, or the scent of her, or the shape of her movements.

Then, all the children were split into twos and threes, until there were four groups, and four adults ushered them outside into the dark woods, the new moon making it difficult to see anything at all. Derek could remember tripping and gasping, wanting desperately to ask questions but terrified to actually do so. Laura’s hand was gripping his tight, and he was terrified to ask his sister, who so worldly at eleven years old, what was going on.

Uncle Peter paused in a clearing, nostrils flaring, and he motioned for them to come closer. When they did so, Derek realized that the stump of a tree Uncle Peter had stopped at was actually sort of hollow, and while it would be a tight fit, just big enough for the two of them to huddle inside.

“Stay here,” Uncle Peter murmured as Laura obediently climbed in, and Derek nervously started in after her.

And then Uncle Peter turned around, as if to leave.

At that, Laura let out a sharp whine, and Derek gasped, small hand shooting out to grab at Uncle Peter’s sleeve. “Don’t leave us!” he whimpered.

“Stay _here_!” Uncle Peter snarled, eyes glowing gold as his fangs lengthened.

Derek let go of Uncle Peter’s sleeve and stared, Laura already half-climbing out of the stump, but Uncle Peter was striding into the forest now, the lantern in his hand creaking open as he lifted the door and blew out the candle.

Darkness fell over the forest, and Derek blindly reached out to grab onto Laura’s arm. After a couple more minutes, she gently patted his hands and pulled him into the stump. They sat there, shivering in the winter chill, and stared back towards the house.

Derek, with the conception of time all children had, didn’t know how long they had sat there, or when they had fallen asleep, but the weak sun woke them sometime in the middle of the day, their bellies growling painfully. For a short while, they dithered, knowing they had been told to stay but growing hungrier and hungrier, until finally Laura grabbed Derek’s hand and dragged him out, away, into the clearing and the opposite direction from where they came.

“Laur, shouldn’t we go back? Mom will be looking for us. Laur?”

Laura never answered him, instead tugging at his hand harder and nearly making Derek trip. With a soft whine, Derek stopped talking and focused on just walking behind Laura, pouting at her back. They had been walking a while when Derek caught the scent of something sweet. Insistently, he began to tug on Laura’s hand. “Laur, Laur, can you _smell_ it?” he begged, whining and pulling at her. For a while, she continued to ignore him, but both their stomachs were growling and reluctantly she turned in the direction of that delicious scent. Now eager, Derek bounded ahead of her – never letting go of her hand, but pulling her along, insistent and so, so hungry.

They ended up in a clearing, where a pretty cottage sat in the center of a vegetable path, two pies set on the windowsill to cool. He had no conception of distance, but he knew that there were no homes near their home, only a path that took you into the village if you followed it closely. This was strange, and something that shouldn’t be here.

“Laura, Laura let’s head home, I’m not hungry anymore,” he whispered, gripping her wrist tighter and tugging a little, even as his stomach growled.

For a minute, it looked like Laura would listen, that Laura would turn and continue walking into the forest with him, even with food and shelter before them. Then she shook her head slowly, face tight. “I don’t know the way and we’ll just get more lost,” Laura said matter-of-factly, though she shifted from side to side and her shoulders were tense. “Uncle Peter was supposed to stay with us. We’re supposed to stay with an adult. Or with someone older’n us.”

Derek considered that before pointing out, “I’m staying with you, Laur.”

Laura let out a soft, wrecked laugh. “That’s good, Derek. Okay. We’ll just… ask this person if they can point us towards the town. There’re a few people in town Mom always talks to and they can help us. We just need to get to town.”

Derek trusted Laura. Of course he did. And it wasn’t Laura’s fault for what happened next.

It wasn’t Laura’s fault that the stern-faced older woman opened the door and let them in, telling them they’d need a cart to make it into town, and her niece was using it at the moment, they’d just have to wait a while. It wasn’t Laura’s fault that they were both hungry, and that as children they didn’t recognize what that weird aftertaste was.

It wasn’t Laura’s fault that they spent two years bound to a witch who was training a young girl on the magical benefits to be gotten from werewolf blood.

It was Derek’s.

 

* * *

Derek shuddered away from a dream, a dream full of noise and laughter and smiling faces, a large house in the middle of the forest. The dream had everyone: father, mother, aunts, uncles, cousins, three sisters and one brother.

Waking up, Derek faced the reality of a much smaller family.

Swallowing hard, he stood up and stretched. Late night, after a hard day’s travel – all the factors are there to make him tired, to make him fall asleep. But he couldn’t, the memories stuck firmly in his head, of his carelessness at the age of seven that had led a witch’s apprentice to tell her witch mentor about a family of werewolves living in the woods. He never told Laura what that tiny girl, who had smelled of candy and green grass and deep rot, had whispered to him as he huddled in the dog cage while Laura screamed on the rack as the elder witch bled Laura for her spells. He never told Laura that he had seen a girl in the woods two weeks earlier, and had transformed in front of the girl, hoping for a friend (he’d been upset with Laura, Cora, and Jason, he remembered, feeling lonely and petulant). He never told Laura, or his mother, or his father, and two weeks later Uncle Peter was leading them out of their home and leaving them in the forest. Two weeks and one day later he and Laura stumbled upon the house that they hoped would save them.

Two weeks and one day after someone had seen his wolf form, he and Laura had stumbled into a hell he had made unknowingly.

“I can hear you brooding from here, Der,” Laura grunted.

Derek bit his lip and rolled his shoulders, trying to make his voice light as he said, “Just gonna head down, check on the horses.”

“You fall out of the saddle because you’re tired tomorrow and I’m never letting you live it down,” Laura muttered into her pillow, rolling the thin blanket around her and curling up into the mattress.

He really should be taking advantage of the mattress while they had it. There was a job for them – hunting down whatever or whoever it was that was stealing children from a small town set deep in the Cardack Forest – and small towns rarely had comfortable rooms for two people. Small towns also were highly superstitious, unlike the bigger towns and cities, and so were unlikely to welcome two lone werewolves into their midst, especially with all those crap myths about werewolves being uncontrolled predators. But instead, here he was, standing in the stables next to Cam, his black steed, and ignoring the way that Laura’s Jess lipped at his pockets and hair.

With a sigh, he leaned his forehead against Cam’s strong neck. When Cam snorted against Derek’s cheek and bumped Derek’s shoulder with his nose, Derek smiled weakly and let out a long sigh.

Tomorrow, they’d be back on the road, two self-made, uneducated werewolves making money by killing. Killing anything; serial killers, werewolves, vampires, witches, warlocks, goblins… Laura kept a pipe dream alive, of earning enough to buy a small place in a city that didn’t mind supernatural creatures, that wouldn’t run them out for being werewolves, and of going to school. Learning a different craft. Finding a husband, falling in love. Derek didn’t have such dreams. His dreams died when cruel eyes laughed as a tongue licked at his blood, soft pink lips laughing at his pain and promising him that no one would have ever known his family was all werewolves if he hadn’t revealed himself to the witch’s apprentice. That it was a pity that only he and Laura had survived, since it meant that there could be no mistakes with the potion; there weren’t extra werewolves lying around if he or Laura ‘accidentally’ died from the process.

He never started dreaming, even when he and Laura had finally gotten immune enough to the wolfsbane drug that had kept them sluggish and obedient for the two years they were with the witches. Instead, he’d learned his most important life lessons when he was nine years old, standing in front of an iron stove and watching an old woman burn just long enough to be certain that she was dead, Laura standing next to him, fingers entwined with his, bloodied and fangs stained red, and then running before the apprentice could return. First thing he learned, of course, was that when a safe haven appeared it was never anything but a trap, no matter how hungry you got. And second, witches could be harmed in many ways – but the only sure way to destroy a witch was with fire.

 

* * *

“Thirteen kids have gone missing from this town in the past six months.”

Derek grunted, trying not to fall asleep in the rocking saddle, as he and Laura approached the tiny town of Beacon Hills. The road wasn’t all that badly damaged, indicating that there was enough trade between this town and others for it not to be as isolationist as other towns had been, but it was nothing more than trampled mud instead of paved stones, which meant it was still pretty far off the map.

“You paying attention, Derek?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Derek muttered, blinking blurred eyes and cursing his inability to sleep.

With a gimlet eye trained on him, Laura continued, “That’s too many kids gone missing too fast. And there’s report of a rogue wolf in the forest with red eyes.”

“I know, Laura,” Derek sighed. “You’ve said a million times.”

“Look, I just think if you look at it, it’s not a witch.”

That gave Derek pause, because they had been approaching this from the perspective of a witch. Witches, in order to survive as long as they did, needed to drain a child of blood and drink it in a potion that harnessed the years a child had left to live. By killing and devouring those years, the witch could continue to live for that number of years.

Of all the supernatural creatures Derek had hunted alongside Laura, there were none he hated more than witches.

Kids disappearing almost always meant witch, while the dead disappearing almost always meant vampires. There were a few exceptions, of course, but generally speaking, the stereotype held true.

“What do you think it could be, then?” Derek demanded. “If you think we’re going about this wrong, then you’re letting me walk into this without full knowledge and I might end up with pants full of mud again because you can’t be bothered to tell me you thought the method of kidnapping was significant.”

Laura let out a sigh. “You’d think that if kids went disappearing near a bog, you’d at _least_ consider that something was living in the bog.” Quieter, she replied, “I don’t know if we’re going about it wrong. The kid angle smells like a witch to me. But a red-eyed wolf…”

Derek tried to figure out why she would be hung up on – “Noooo,” he said disbelievingly, squinting at her. “You don’t honestly believe there’s a _werewolf_ out there?”

“Red eyes mean alpha, you know that,” she replied.

“And wolf means _wolf_. No werewolf’s ever become an actual wolf before. It’s impossible.”

She heaved another sigh and kicked Jess into a faster canter as the smells of filth, smoke, and people grew stronger. “I know. That’s why I haven’t mentioned it. But if an alpha’s looking to make a pack, maybe that’s where the kids are disappearing.”

“Alphas pick people who are strong enough to draw strength from. Kids aren’t that,” Derek pointed out as Cam, obedient to Jess and by default Laura more than Derek, sped up his pace.

“Well,” she began, but they were both cut off by a muted roar from many throats. Sharing a look between them – this wouldn’t be the first time they had to deal with a mob mentality – Derek grumbled but flapped his reins. The two of them turned in the direction of the noise and made their way into the town square.

There, an elderly man, silvered hair balding, maybe around fifty or sixty years old, the traditional silver retractable baton all sheriffs owned shoved into his belt, stood on a raised stage. Normally such a stage was reserved for public events – weddings and the like, that the whole town participated in, but this stage had nothing on it at the moment but a young man with short hair, brown eyes, and freckled moles, probably no more than sixteen or seventeen, enshrouded in worn and weathered leather and hides, held still by two deputies who were both easily over thirty years of age. He was struggling, cursing, talking a mile a minute – words that the sheriff talked over. Half the faces in the crowd showed clear approval of what was taking place; the other half looked worried, uncertain. And there was a young man at the back of the crowd, shoving his way to the front with the deliberate control of a newly-turned werewolf trying not to harm ordinary humans.

Laura rolled her eyes and jumped off her mare easily, patting the strawberry roan’s flank. “Why don’t you go deal with the sheriff’s ‘witch’ while I nab that werewolf? You can take your dick gun with you.”

Derek flushed. “It’s not a dick gun,” he muttered under his breath, pulling out the specialized shotgun he’d had crafted from a design he’d drawn himself when he was thirteen and they were flush from their first witch-killing.

…Though he had to admit, it looked a _little_ like a dick. But it was supposed to be more like a miniature canon, able to spread silver shot and witch-brew bullets in a devastating shower of shrapnel. At thirteen he’d been pretentious.

Still, he stomped his way through the crowd – the leather, the chains, the knives, the crossbow, the axe, and the scowl all convincing people to make way for him. He reached the stage just as the two deputies took the young kid’s head and shoved it into a barrel of water, holding the kid under.

Swearing under his breath, Derek leapt up onto the stage and punched the first deputy square in the nose, his free hand bringing the shotgun up and leveling it at the sheriff. “Don’t move,” he growled under his breath, grabbing the kid’s hair and dragging him up and out.

Gasping like a beached fish, the kid began choking and coughing, hanging weakly like a kitten from Derek’s grip. Derek had a moment to look at him, really look, at the long and lean body, the dripping wet upper chest, those brown eyes darting around before resting on Derek’s own. Derek swallowed hard and tried to shake the strange feeling that curled up in his chest and settled behind his lungs, and instead twitched his gaze across the crowd, searching for his sister.

From his elevated position, Derek could see that Laura had managed to get to the werewolf’s side, even as someone else – a sharply dressed man in his mid-thirties – pushed his way to the front.

“Gerard, I thought we discussed this!” the man hissed. He walked with a noticeable limp, a patch covering one badly scarred eye, and Derek’s sensitive ears caught the sound of a mechanical whirr when the man moved. Lost a limb somewhere, Derek surmised, but the whirring of a mechanical limb informed Derek that this was the mayor, the man who’d contacted Laura and asked them to bring back the missing children while dealing with whatever it was that caused them to go missing. The fact that the mayor couldn’t control the sheriff was… troubling, and most likely a bad sign for Laura and Derek. Things never went smoothly when there were warring factions within a town.

“This _boy_ has cursed our town to lose children! He dabbles in spells and witchcraft and is a blight upon our city!” the sheriff snarled, loud enough for the crowd to hear – and for some of them to shout their agreement.

“Calling this place a city is pretty optimistic of you,” Laura called out, jumping onto the stage and walking briskly over to the sheriff and the mayor. “But beyond that – that boy is no more a witch than you are.”

Derek set the boy on his feet – who wobbled, but managed to stand on his own – and then proceeded to draw forth a silver knife and slice open a line across the boy’s cheek.

“Hey!” the boy yelped, startled, but then Derek was blowing a pinch of dried wormroot into the boy’s face. Gasping and coughing, the boy wiped irritated eyes and glared hotly at Derek. Derek did his best not to grin like a goof or drool.

“There you go,” Laura said easily. “The silver didn’t burn him, and the wormroot didn’t paralyze him. Not a witch. Or someone who touches magic.”

“You’re free to go,” Derek grunted.

The kid stared at him for a long moment, long enough to make Derek highly uncomfortable and self-conscious. With a twitch forward, he threw his hands out in a shooing motion. “Go!” Derek repeated.

The kid scampered off the stage, and was instantly joined by the werewolf Laura had seen moving in the crowd earlier. The two of them were growled at by some of the crowd, but passed by unmolested. Except…

Derek narrowed his eyes as he watched the werewolf’s fingers dip into a man’s pocket and come out with a coin-purse, and then snag a hunk of bread from a woman’s shopping basket.

Well. It wasn’t any of Derek’s business, and the two of them were obviously not well off due to the state of their clothes. Beyond that, those people had been completely ready to string the supposed ‘witch’ up without any hard proof.

“I’ll be damned if I let some bitch come into my town and tell me how to police my own people!”

Derek lifted an eyebrow at the sheriff, turning back to the little political drama playing out for the citizens of the town. Laura could handle herself, of course, so he moved over to the barrel and dipped his handkerchief into it, using the damp cloth to wipe away the road’s dust from his face, forearms, and neck.

“Well, see now, sugar, I wasn’t telling you how to police your people,” Laura replied sunnily, though her eyes flashed gold. “I was simply doing my duty as a law-abiding citizen to make certain an innocent man wasn’t going to be put on trial.”

The sheriff whirled to the crowd. “These outsiders have no right trampling through our streets and stopping justice from being carried out—”

“My name is Laura,” Laura interrupted him, voice cutting and flat. “That’s my brother Derek. You probably know of us – witch hunters and exterminators. We track down the supernatural ick that’s bothering your nice, sweet town, and we kill it. We were invited here to find your children, and that’s what we’re going to do.”

At that, the mayor nodded shortly and also turned to the crowd. “I promise we are doing all we can to retrieve your children and bring them home. Justice _will_ be served – but it will not be served outside a court of law, in the streets, as if we were animals.”

Already the crowd was beginning to disperse, only the die-hard gossips lingering, and the sheriff curled his lip up and advanced on Laura, though his words were for the mayor. “Mark my words, you’ll pay for this. You brought the wolf to guard the henhouse from the fox, and you’ll be up to your ears in blood and death before the week’s out. You called for _werewolves_ to take care of humans? Might as well dangle a juicy steak in front of a dog.” Standing directly in front of Laura, he loomed over her and sneered. “At least then you’ll know the dog will bite; werewolves are backstabbing bastards, and this bitch—”

Laura slammed her forehead into the sheriff’s nose.

Blood spurted, and the sheriff grabbed his nose in agony. Derek was chuckling under his breath even as he leveled his shotgun against the temple of the only deputy still standing. “I wouldn’t do that, if I were you,” he murmured. “In fact, I’d get my friend off the floor and leave this issue be.”

The deputy hesitated a moment longer before sighing and bending down to slap his fellow awake, and helped the man away.

The sheriff, meanwhile, was glaring at all three of them – the mayor, Laura, and Derek. “You think you can just walk in here and strip me of my power?” Whirling on his heel, he strode off the platform, pushing past the few lingerers, leaving Laura and Derek with the mayor.

Sighing, the mayor rubbed at his shoulder and jerked his head to the side. “Get your mounts, and come to the city council’s building. All governmental offices are located there, as well as all the information you’ll need for this job.”

 

* * *

In the mayor’s office, Derek found a small niche to sit in and knock dirt and the town muck from the weather-treated hide and denim. He was feeling worn out, stretched thin, more than simple travel would make him feel. Part of his fatigue came from the fact that he didn’t get any sleep the night before, but part of his fatigue was from the long-standing weakness that their time as the witch’s thralls had left him. The wolfsbane drug given to him as a child had left him with a long-lasting poison in his body that needed a regular antidote injection in order to flush his system of the drug. Laura was better off than he was, whether it was because she had been older or if she had fought longer and harder than Derek did, and she didn’t need the three-times-a-day injection Derek did, though she injected herself at least once a day, and if she missed a day she could be laid out with one well-aimed punch (which had been terrifying to discover, when he and she had been sparring one day).

Pulling out the case of the antidote, Derek located a vein in his arm and depressed the plunger while Laura leaned over the mayor’s desk, looking over the files and penned reports.

“Why don’t you think the kids aren’t dead yet?” Laura asked bluntly. “Kids disappearing mean witches, and witches mean they’re looking to renew their lease on life. This many kids missing… I doubt any of them are recoverable.”

The mayor’s lips firmed and narrowed. “True,” he said grudgingly. “But these disappearences are fairly recent. And while –yes, we know what witches do with children. But I cannot give up hope, not yet.” The man paused, and continued more quietly, “We’ve been very good at keeping our woods clear of _harmful_ supernatural creatures. We’ve had, in the past, good terms with a werewolf pack living on the edge of our city, and we have a few shifters, one or two centaurs on the edge of the fallowed fields. This – this is something we aren’t equipped to handle.”

Laura looked up at the mayor from where she was bent over the many sheets of parchment and crisp stylo sheets. “Your sheriff seems to think you can handle it.”

The mayor grunted and sat down in his seat, opposite Laura, and rubbed again at his shoulder. “The sheriff is my uncle, Gerard Argent, and he became the sheriff when this city’s first sheriff, John Stilinski, died from a wolf attack five years ago.”

“You have a lot of wolf attacks for such a small town,” Laura jumped in. “This seems really strange, Mr…?”

“Argent. Chris Argent; Gerard is my uncle from my father’s side. And yeah… there have been a lot of reports about a wolf living in the woods to the southeast of the city, one bigger than normal. I don’t hold with the rumors, and so I’m not going to repeat them, but we’ve sent out a few hunters in hopes of running it down. Obviously, we haven’t been successful. And we have no other recourse. We live out on the edge of the Patriae, so we don’t get the King’s emissaries very often. Instead, we’re reliant on the honor of mercenaries like you and your brother. No offense intended, of course.”

Laura snorted, and Derek couldn’t keep the small grin from the corners of his mouth. “None taken, Mr. Argent.” Leaning back in the seat, she undid her hair tie and pulled the sweaty strands from her dust-streaked neck. “My brother and I might not be King’s lawmakers, but we’ll do our best to track down what’s been happening here. But – if you don’t mind my asking – can I also have all reports relating to this wolf sighting? I think it might have something to do with the case, otherwise I wouldn’t ask.”

“If you’re thinking a rogue werewolf – we set up traps for it, traps that werewolves are particularly weak to, and nothing happened. Silver, wolfsbane, even normal wolf traps. Barreled right through them; our efforts never even touched it.” Chris Argent tapped a finger against the desk for a moment before sighing. “But, if you’re really interested, I suppose it wouldn’t harm anything.”

“It’s unlikely that two supernatural events are taking place that are not linked in any way, even if it’s just one event making it easier for the other to take place.” Laura rolled up the parchment and sheets, slipping them into the weather-proof tube, before throwing it at Derek.

Derek caught it and placed it in his leather pack. Then he stood up and picked up Laura’s pack at her feet, leaving the room to go get them beds in the nearby inn.

“Doesn’t speak much, does he?” he heard the mayor ask dryly as he stepped out the door and off of the wooden porch towards the hitching post, and heard Laura’s laugh. Before he could catch her response, however, Cam snorted loud enough in his ear to make him wince and glower at the gelding.

“You want help with those fine beasts of burden, mister?”

Derek craned his head to look behind Cam’s hindquarters. There, against the post where Cam and Jess had been tied while he and Laura were in the mayor’s office, leaned the long, rangy body of the young werewolf Derek had seen pick the pockets of the crowd earlier, the one who had been making his way to the stage, and had gone off with the accused witch

This close to the horses, downwind of the boy, Derek couldn’t really pick out any scents, so he simply stood and stared and tried not to think about the weird curl in his chest. He’d felt something similar just an hour ago, staring at the accused ‘witch’ on that stage. He’d need to ask Laura what that meant, because it couldn’t be normal.

As always, his unblinking stare and blank demeanor had the boy fidgeting within seconds. “Look, do you want help or not?”

“Also a stubborn sonofabitch too,” Laura’s voice came, much louder than normal, meaning she wanted him to hear it.

Derek looked over his shoulder at the door and scowled. Doing so broke the staring contest with the kid, who let out a soft huff of air and shifted awkwardly. Derek wanted nothing to do with this kid, even though he was curious as to how this kid was allowed to run freely throughout the town without one of his pack riding herd on him, and so turned his back on the kid and moved towards the inn across the cobblestone street. It was getting dark – Chris hadn’t been exaggerating when he named this tiny town on the edge of the King’s borders with the Wild, and the ride from the previous city to here had taken them the better part of the day. Judging the sky, Derek decided they wouldn’t be riding out tonight to begin the search. Witches might come out in the dark, and werewolves had the advantage then, but he and Laura were both tired and beyond that, they had no information at all on how to go about looking. It was never a good idea to go wandering about in woods you’d never been before, looking for something you weren’t sure about in any case.

“Is that a no, then?”

“That’s an ‘I’m fine, kid, buzz off,’” Derek grumbled.

“Your sister’s nicer than you,” the kid replied under his breath.

Derek turned around, intent on glaring the kid into submission – after all, he had at least six, maybe seven years on him – only to find that the kid was walking alongside Jess’s head, and was a bit taller than Derek himself. Scowling, Derek snipped, “She’s also more lenient than I am. I saw you pinch those purses, kid.”

Burnished copper bleeding into a pink flush, the kid hunched his shoulders. “Not a kid,” he said defiantly. “I bet I’m as old as you.”

“Just ‘cause you’re as tall or taller than someone doesn’t make you as old as them,” Derek grunted, entering the stables of the inn and letting go of Cam’s reins to flip the stable hand a coin.

“My name’s Scott,” the kid continued.

“I didn’t really ask,” Derek sighed, leading Cam and Jess into the two stalls that were closest to exit.

The kid – Scott – popped into Jess’s stall and immediately began unsaddling her, hanging the tack in the appropriate places quickly and competently. Derek watched the younger man distrustfully; people eager to help carry or take care of baggage could easily pinch a few things and make off with valuable items.

Apparently, Scott knew what he was thinking, because he threw Derek a wounded look. “I wouldn’t do that to you guys! Laura said you were going to help me get control of my wolf!”

Derek’s hackles bristled. “Maybe she will,” he ground out as he grudgingly handed the kid – Scott – a brush and moved to see to Cam. “ _I_ won’t.” He didn’t trust himself around Scott, not with this strange tug he felt deep in his chest.

“Do you need help – ah, Scott, nice to see you! I take it you met Derek?”

Scott sniffed theatrically. “He didn’t even introduce himself!”

Laura narrowed her eyes at Derek, even as she stepped into Jess’s stall and began putting food and drink before the strawberry roan, who snorted and immediately dunked her head into the grain. “Really, Derek? Excuse my brother, he has the manner of a pig and the subtlety of a bull. Maybe you can tell me where your pack is, and where I can meet your alpha? I have a few questions for him.”

“I don’t have one,” the kid said, confused.

Derek paused in the middle of his brushing of Cam, looking at the kid critically. A worn vest, oft-mended canvas pants stained at the cuffs, a white shirt washed enough to make it edge towards grey, no coin purse or adornment anywhere. An orphan, or the child of a very poor family, one without the ability to pay for more than the basics. Looking at the ratty state of Scott, he had to admit that it was obvious there was no alpha taking care of this kid. Starving werewolves turned into hungry werewolves around the full moon.

“Well, how did a lone omega come to settle into this tiny, rinky-dink town?” Laura teased, drawing the kid out. “Surely there are other towns more accepting of the supernatural than this one.”

Scott turned back to brushing, focusing wholly on the knots in Jess’s mane. “I’ve always lived here, ma’am.”

“Really?” Derek interrupted.

Scott and Laura looked over at him, Scott in surprise and Laura in annoyance. Realizing that Laura wanted to speak to Scott without his interruptions, Derek put up his hands and nabbed his saddlebags. “Going in to get us a room,” he said defensively, and left the stables as quickly as he could while making it clear he wasn’t running.

 

* * *

The inn wasn’t the worst they stayed in, but no room had double beds. Derek sighed, requested an extra blanket if it could be spared, and resigned himself to huddling under Laura’s bed again with his pack as a pillow. It wouldn’t be the first time, but he really disliked the position, all in all.

The inn had good food, though, or at least acceptable food, and Derek ordered three dinners (because he knew Laura, knew her penchant for taking in strays and making them stronger, able to stand on their own, and because he did want the kid to stick around and have a good meal) before sitting down with the few sheets of information he’d packed away in the tube. Unrolling them and grabbing a charcoal stick from his kit, he began marking up a map on the table, looking at where the children were taken, adding a sun or moon or cloud depending on the nature of the weather – when the weather was given. At least time of day was guaranteed on these reports, he thought to himself in disgust as he moved through the very bare bones and basic report provided.

Hearing his sister’s approach, he looked up, scowling at her (and Scott simply because he was in range). “This is pathetic. No detailed reports. Just the minimum. No investigation. Nothing. This is such a backwards town, Laura. They don’t even have double _beds_.”

“You’re whining,” she said smugly, even as she pushed Scott down into the nearest chair and took a chair for herself. “I always love it when you do that. It means I’m doing something right.”

Derek gave her a wounded look, going back to his stew and poking at it disconsolately.

“So Scott here tells me he lives with his mother on the edge of the town, almost into the woods. He was out getting herbs of some kind for her when he heard a growl, and he turned around to see a red-eyed wolf and then boom, nothing. Next full moon he nearly eats his mother. Still doesn’t have control down. Like _someone_ I know.”

Hunching his shoulders, Derek ignored the jab. It was harder for him to control his anger and keep his strength in check, and part of that was because of the poison still in his system that would alternatively leave him as weak as a human or pumped up with aggression. Luckily, Scott thought she was poking at him, because he saved Derek the trouble of speaking up.

“I know it sounds ridiculous,” Scott muttered, staring at the food hungrily.

Laura immediately shook her head. “It sounds all too plausible, really. The question is, why did it happen?”

“Does it even have anything to do with the job we’re getting _paid_ to do?” Derek demanded crossly.

“Two supernatural events happening this close to each other means they’re related to one another, you know that,” Laura pointed out, breaking off a hunk of bread to dip it into the thick stew.

Derek muttered under his breath, ignoring Scott’s blatant hero-worshipping gaze on himself and Laura.

“You’re just a sourpuss,” Laura grunted back, kicking him underneath the table.

His head jerked up and he fixed Laura with a gimlet stare. “We’re not starting this again,” he hissed. “Stop it!”

She hummed under her breath, and he went back to his food in silence for a few blissful minutes before she mumbled, “So the sheriff seems to be in an antsy mood. And Scott, for the mother’s sake, we didn’t buy that food for you to stare at it.”

Like a shot, the kid was tearing into the meal, even as Derek twisted in his chair to stare at the man who was sitting in the far end of the inn’s common room, surrounded by what looked to be mercenaries of some kind. He could see what she meant – the sheriff certainly was nervous, or at least ill at ease, shifting on his chair and glancing at the timepiece in his waistcoat pocket. The mercenaries sitting around him looked as worried as he did.

Scott snorted. “He would be. He’s been trying to get Stiles for weeks now, and when he finally caught him you guys rescued him.”

“Stiles?” Derek repeated, even as Laura’s eyes slanted over at Scott, watching him closely.

“My – my friend. The guy they were going to drown. He lives deeper in the woods than mom and I do. He was the son of the last sheriff, and his mother used to give my family free poultices and lotions. A lot of herbs and homegrown cures. Everyone accepted that his mother had the touch of magic in her, though she wasn’t an evil witch.”

“All witches are evil,” Derek grunted.

The toes of Laura’s boots planted into Derek’s shin, and he winced.

“Not Stiles’ mom!” Scott said stoutly. “There are good witches in the world!”

“All witches need blood of a child to survive. If you need blood to survive, chances are you aren’t exactly on the path of the straight and narrow. Stop _kicking_ me, Laura!” Derek snarled.

Scott opened his mouth to continue arguing, but Laura interrupted the exchange by asking Scott, “So, what, he just assumes this Stiles kid is a witch too? That seems like a far stretch.”

Scott squirmed and looked down at his plate. “Well. Stiles is really good at hiding. And he can put together the same poultices and brews and herbal remedies his mom could. And so Sheriff Argent said he must be the witch taking the kids, because he looks so young, and so he’d been trying for weeks to catch him. Stiles is pretty good about ignoring traps set for him, though.”

Derek’s stomach turned. Witches were – he would always associate witch that that loss of control, the poison pumping through his veins, the drugs and the commands he had to obey no matter what. He had _tested_ that kid, though, with silver and with wormroot. What other tests were there? Or was Stiles so good as to fool the tests? He knew there were some witches that were exceedingly powerful, that could trick the silver and the wormroot properties and keep their true nature hidden.

And he – he’d _saved_ that boy. Witch. Kid. _Thing_.

Laura looked at Derek gravely, knowing where his mind went, and when Derek moved to push away from the table and hole up in the hotel room, she reached across the table and grabbed his wrist. “Not yet, little bro,” she murmured. “We gotta sit down and discuss how we’re gonna handle this job. Put it out of your mind, and we’ll just ignore him for right now. Focus on the really bad reports and write-ups. You notice anything about the disappearances?”

For a moment, Derek considered shaking off her hand, ignoring her and retreating to their room anyway. She was the brains of the outfit, normally, and Derek just went where she pointed him. But he knew she was trying to settle his emotions, and there was the additional worry of this kid she’d picked up. Laura never did anything without a good reason, so if she was keeping this kid close to them, Derek might as well resign himself to having the kid around. So, with a deep sigh, he acquiesced under her hand and sat back down on the bench.

“Notice anything beyond the fact that people are way too careless with their children?” he sighed. “They’re all taken from the wilder parts of the meadow or the woods. Most children weren’t even supposed to be there – all of them are under the age of ten, and most of them forbidden from the fields and meadows until they’re old enough to actually help there. Yet other children reported that they walked towards the woods or the meadows voluntarily. There’s no definite site where they’re disappearing, because no one’s actually seen a kid disappear. No blood left, though, and dogs track the scent to the edge of the woods and stop.”

Leaning forward, and ignoring the star-struck kid listening to their every word, Laura motioned him on. “What more? What do you think’s happening, from this?”

“It’s some kind of summoning spell, that’s for certain,” Derek said slowly. “To bring the kids to the meadows? Especially with kids knowing that other kids are disappearing? Kids are smarter about the supernatural than adults; they wouldn’t do stupid things like this unless something lured them there.”

“So definitely a witch, then.”

And there, Derek hesitated. He couldn’t say for certain, because you knew when a witch took a kid; there was some blood, some screams. There would be some discarded clothing, because most witches, like vampires, couldn’t restrain themselves from tasting the kid before dragging the kid off. If the kid was unlucky, and was destined to die soon, the witch would probably just kill the kid and go find one with a longer lifespan to steal – witches needed a lot of years, after all.

“I can’t say,” he finally grunted. “It doesn’t match pattern of a witch.”

“Exactly!” Laura crowed, slamming her hand down on the table long enough to garner baleful looks from the sheriff’s direction. “So, what do you _think_ it is?”

“I honestly don’t know, Laura, okay? It’s not like there’s a giant book that lists all the types of magical creatures in it,” Derek huffed.

“Um,” Scott butted into the conversation, biting his lip. “There is?”

Derek and Laura turned to look at him, Derek with suspicion and Laura with excitement. “You think we can get a hold of this book, look up what this is?”

Slowly, Scott shook his head in the negative. “It’s Stiles’ book, and beyond that, we tried to find supernatural creature that matched that profile, but we couldn’t. This doesn’t make sense.”

“Magical creatures always make sense,” Laura hummed to herself, sopping up the last bits of broth with her piece of bread. “Only one kind of creature never makes any sense at all.”

“But why would a human be taking kids? There’s no reason for it,” Derek snapped back.

Laura poked her spoon in Derek’s direction. “You said it yourself. All supernatural creatures follow some kind of pattern. They keep to themselves and only attack when attacked or threatened. The only exceptions are the supernatural creatures that were once human, or that are humanoid. So, following this logically, there should be a human at the bottom of this.”

“I would swear there’s something wrong with your logic,” Derek mumbled, “but I’m tired of arguing with you. Let’s hear your pet theory, then.”

“Who needs kids? Why would you need so many, unless you’re just sick and you get off on it?” Laura began, whirling her spoon around and splattering the kid with drops of gravy. “So either this is a witch that is stockpiling for a coven – which, let’s face it, could happen, but witches living together in a group of more than two always end up killing one another soon enough – or this is a human stockpiling for their own gratification and sickness. In either case, what we need to do is figure out where the kids are being kept. You and I can scour the woods tomorrow morning, and then in the afternoon and night, if we haven’t found anything, scour the town. We should also probably look into the other kids, see what the kids are saying about this. Maybe they saw something that will help us identify what’s happening here.”

Derek waited, but Laura seemed to be done speaking. Certainly she put her spoon down and was draining her cup. After a moment, he ventured, “You didn’t put a wolf in there, and you seemed pretty hot on the topic before.”

“Because a wolf – whether a real wolf or a werewolf – would leave blood, wouldn’t it?” Laura said, though she sounded disappointed. “I have to guess that this is some kind of illusion, maybe a way of herding kids in the direction the witch wants them to go – or there’s a big dog in the woods that the human’s using to scare kids. Wolves wouldn’t hang around where there’s no food, and werewolves would kill only if their territory is threatened. Neither would simply kidnap the kids cleanly, leaving no blood at all behind. Though that doesn’t really explain you, now, does it?” she ended, glancing over at Scott.

“This is so cool,” Scott whispered in a hushed voice.

Laura smiled wide, teeth showing. “We need you to get your hands on that book if you can. I’d also like to talk to your friend, though I don’t think Derek would, so I’ll leave Derek to start out tomorrow into the woods and I’ll go with you to wherever your friend wants to meet. And we can try and establish how you became a werewolf, and what you need to know. Sounds good?”

Scott gnawed on his lip. “Stiles doesn’t like being around people,” he said apologetically. “I mean, he’ll walk in the woods and stuff, and sometimes slip into the market and buy a few things he can’t get elsewise, but he’s pretty solitary.”

“Well, he would be doing us a big favor if he could meet with me tomorrow. Just pass the message along.”

After a long moment, Scott nodded his head uncertainly. “Okay,” he said slowly. “Okay. I can do that. Just pass the message along?”

Laura nodded, all smiles, and Derek wondered why people thought he was the more dangerous one. With the way he never talked, the way he always looked, people were _expecting_ him to jump down their throats, or jump _for_ their throats. They never expected Laura to do the same thing.

“Now then! A quick question before you leave – when did you become a werewolf?”

Scott paused, and looked at Derek before turning back to Laura. “Erm. About four months ago? Only I don’t need to leave. I – erm – I made sure it was alright. To be here. And talk.”

“Kid has a curfew,” Derek sighed, glancing through the parchments. “That’s great, Laura, just great. And if you’re angling to see if his turning has anything to do with the kidnappings—”

“No, I know they’ve been going on for six months. No real connection there. I’m just curious, because if an alpha was passing through—”

Derek bit back a growl. Laura had tried to have them join a pack for about three years now, and an alpha that could turn someone and then run off without being responsible and at least explaining to the kid what was had happened was _not_ an alpha they needed to be following.

She caught his expression and sighed. “I know. But if these have been going on for six months, I wonder why the mayor is just now calling people in. I mean, this is a lot of kids to just have _disappear_ from the town and never find again _._ I just – I _wonder_ what’s got the sheriff in a tizzy back there. Oh, look, there he goes – he’s gone. Hmm. Do you think he sent someone else out to look for this Stiles kid?” Laura paused, and Derek recognized the itchy need for a good hunt driving at her when she cocked her head at Scott. “Why does the sheriff hate the kid so much?”

Scott shrugged. “Who knows? Everyone just knows he really wanted the sheriff’s position, and when he finally got it he became unbearable, pulling his title and rank every chance he got. It’s to the point where most people avoid him in the streets just because they don’t want to deal with him.”

“So, no reason to go after Stiles in particular?”

“If you don’t need me anymore, Laura,” Derek said, pushing away from the table and standing.

Laura frowned at him, but apparently decided fighting wouldn’t be worth it. “Get a good night’s rest for once.”

With a snort, Derek made his way to the stairs and up to the room he was sharing with his sister. A good night’s rest. On this hard floor? Muttering under his breath, he opened the door to the room to find that the extra blanket was barely able to qualify for such a title, barely able to cover him as it was.

Sighing, he took off the leather jacket and undid his jerkin, leaving himself in his undershirt and rough denim pants. With his pack under his head, he pulled the threadbare piece of cloth masquerading as a blanket around his shoulders and dropped off to sleep.

 

* * *

“Derek. Derek.”

He grunted and tried to ignore the insistent voice.

A strong hand grabbed his shoulder and shook him. “ _Derek_.”

“Whazzit Laur?” he mumbled, blinking open sleep-encrusted eyes to see her dark eyes framed by her hair, face pale and intent.

“Do you remember our parents? Anything at all?”

“We don’t talk about this, Laur, ‘specially not this early in th’mornin,” he muttered. “Go to sleep.”

“Derek – Derek I thought I recognized someone today. I think we’re in the town that was by our family’s old home. And I just – I had the weirdest dream. That Scott kid smelled familiar. And none of this is registering with you, is it?”

“No parent talk,” Derek repeated, and he wiggled his way under Laura’s bed to escape her poking fingers.

She huffed in irritation and leaned her head out over the side of the bed, looking at him upside down, hair brushing the wooden floor. “ _Derek_. What are you, five?”

He twisted around to give her his back and was just coherent enough to flip her the bird before falling back asleep, dust making his nose itch.

 

* * *

The next morning, he woke himself up by banging his head on the underside of the bed – he had a bad habit of rolling under beds and generally ensconcing himself in a safe place while he slept, and woke up with no memory of maneuvering himself into such spots at all. As it was, he was utterly filthy, encrusted with the dust from under the bed, and, sneezing, he elbow-crawled his way out to find that Laura was already gone, leaving him a note that she had gone to track down Scott and use Scott to track down Stiles. Derek was supposed to start scouting the woods for the scents of the kid as soon as he woke up. The note was propped against a plate with cold biscuits and cuts of meat.

Bolting down the food, he used the washbasin to clean the most of the dirt off of him before pulling on a rough woolen tunic and cinching it tight around his waist, canvas pants pulled up and secured with a belt. Scooping up a few coins, he made his way to the market for some supplies for him while he was out in the woods, and a fresh supply of wormroot and basilbane.

“So I never properly thanked you for saving my life.”

Derek yelped and jumped up, a knife immediately springing into his hand as he whirled on the voice’s owner, only to see Stiles, standing in the middle of the market as if he hadn’t a care in the world, rocking back and forth on his heels.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Derek demanded in a furious whisper, advancing on the young man.

Stiles grinned widely. “I hear Scott introduced me to you, and you – or rather, your sister, has anyone told you your sister is really the sweetest person when she isn’t being terrifying? – were introduced to the town, so I know your name is Derek, and you know my name is Stiles, so with those pleasantries out of the way I thought I should just get to the point. Which is that I never properly thanked you for saving my life.” The incessant flow of noise paused, and then Stiles winked lewdly. “Which I can now, if you so pleased.”

“I – I _don’t_ so please, Stiles, don’t – isn’t my sister supposed to be talking to you?” he said desperately, edging away from Stiles. Stiles, who was supposedly a witch. Stiles, who was the kind of creature that had kept Derek a slave for months of his childhood. Stiles, who smelled like earth and growth and sunshine and fresh air and made Derek’s wolf want to _purr_ and he was a wolf for fuck’s sake, wolves didn’t _purr_.

Stiles hitched one shoulder nonchalantly and trailed behind Derek as Derek made his way from stall to stall in the market, looking at the various mechanical wonders and picking up supplies here and there. “She wanted to, yeah, but people who want things shouldn’t always get that thing, because then they’d think that thing was easy, and I’m _not_ easy, except for Scott, and maybe for you if you play your cards right.”

Derek turned around to gape at Stiles.

Looking at him, Stiles winced. “Well. I don’t think you’d know _how_ to play your cards at all, let alone play your cards right. Oh well, I’ll teach you. I find that unbearably hot, by the way. What do you need basilbane for? I thought that was poison.”

“Do you ever shut up?” Derek asked despairingly as he tried unsuccessfully to get Stiles to stop following him.

“Nope, not ever. I probably even talk in my sleep. Hey, that’s a good folding knife, great craftsmanship, Boyd always does the best with copper and steel, you know.”

Derek paused, remembering only now what had nearly happened to Stiles yesterday, and why Stiles _really_ shouldn’t be in the market right now. “How can you just stand there around everyone who was ready and willing to kill you yesterday?” he asked incredulously. “Shouldn’t you be somewhere safe?”

“Well, to be honest wherever I am is probably the safest place to be, really, but if it comes down to it, I can stand being around them because I know they just want their kids back, even if they chose a shitty way to do that – I mean, really, killing me won’t bring back their kids, right? But they want someone to blame, someone to punish. So do I, for that matter – want someone to punish, I mean – but what I really want is for the werewolf that turned Scott to be put down. It’s still lurking around here, and I’m worried it’ll savage another human, and they’ll have to live with themselves like Scott does. Poor kid already has enough on his plate, and his mother is the local washerwoman and barely makes enough to keep the kid in clothes, let alone in food. There aren’t many living in his same condition, but there are a few, and if this werewolf goes after them I doubt they’ll adjust as well as he has, all things considered.”

Rubbing his temples, Derek did his best to keep from punching this kid in the face. “Look, you’ll need to speak to Laura about that, okay? But I will tell you this: werewolves can’t turn into full wolves; I’ve never heard of that happening, and I’ve been transforming since I was five years old.”

Stiles cocked an eyebrow at him and grinned infuriatingly, white tunic billowing about that rangy frame. “Oh, and because you’ve never heard of it happening, it doesn’t exist?” he asked smugly. “Someone’s certainly cocky.”

Before Derek could reply, Stiles hopped forward and pressed a chaste kiss at the corner of Derek’s mouth. “I’ll be seeing you around, I hope!” he said easily. “Me and Scott would love it!”

And then he was gone. He didn’t vanish in a puff of smoke, didn’t disappear from Derek’s sight. Derek knew, objectively, that Stiles’ body had twitched to the left, and milliseconds later Derek was catching his back in the same direction, but Stiles seemed to glide through the shoppers as if they couldn’t see him.

Derek’s stomach danced nervously, and he felt that familiar turn of panic and fear in his stomach. Shoving it aside, he finished wrapping up his purchases, hefted his rifle ( _not_ a dick gun, thank you very much Laura), and made his way into the woods.

 

* * *

When he met up with Laura that afternoon in the inn’s common room, they both said at the same time, “I think I found something.”

Laura bit her lip, and then gestured for Derek to continue. “What did you see?” she asked.

“Tracks,” Derek said glumly. “Not wolf tracks – too human, too elongated. Not anything else’s tracks, really. There’s a werewolf hiding out somewhere, and I guess there’s a breed out there we’ve never heard of that transforms entirely? In any case, I tried following the scent trail of the scent from those tracks, but the tracks were very old, and the odd smell I’ve been smelling in the woods signals werewolves but it’s too faint and confusing to track it easily.” He poked at the slab of meat and bread with a finger before looking up at Laura. “What’d you find?”

“Well, I managed to get Scott to take me to Stiles, and I spoke with him a bit, and he was kind enough to let me look through his book, but Scott was right – there’s nothing there that matches this pattern. Also, Stiles said that he’s been noticing heavy wards of some kind in a certain area of the forest. It’s not near the kidnappings, but it’s the best we have right now. Though we should start talking to the kids in the town, get a better feel for what exactly happened. Hell, maybe we’ll find the kids in some pervert’s locked basement, though I don’t know what’s worse – that they were taken by a witch or that they were taken by a human.” Laura hummed around a big mouthful of food.

“Witch,” Derek grunted.

Laura narrowed her eyes at Derek. “You and your prejudices don’t need to be here anymore, thank you,” she said primly. “Go sniff out clues.”

“I did. That’s why I was in the forest all morning, and you were just wandering around in circles until Stiles showed up and you could speak with him,” Derek snipped back, but he stood up and stretched. There wasn’t much daylight left, but he was certain he didn’t need daylight to interview humans. He might be interrupting them during their dinner time, but all-in-all, if it meant getting their kids back, they’d probably be cooperative. “I guess I’ll head out, though. No sense in us _both_ being useless.”

Laura snarled at him, and he let out a little laugh as he exited the inn’s common room and made his way to the mayor’s offices, looking for the list of witnesses and friends of the kids who had gone missing.

It turned out that people’s deep-seated prejudices against werewolves overruled people’s need to find the missing children. Certainly Derek had been turned away from quite a few homes even though he was only there to ask questions regarding the disappearances. Angry and furious that people would allow their prejudices to keep them from helping his investigation, he turned away from the most recent house and decided he could try again tomorrow, when he wasn’t pissed and growling at the people he needed to talk with. In the distance, he could hear shouts, smell wood burning. Something on fire – and, out here on the border far from heavy civilization, everything was made with wood. He should probably go help put it out, even if he was pissed at the citizens. Fires spread, after all, and the inn was just as vulnerable as…

But as he moved towards the source of the shouting and frenzied activity, he realized it wasn’t just that the inn was vulnerable – it was the inn that was on fire.

Heart in his throat, he ran forward through the throng of people trying to put out the blaze, heading for the stables first to get Cam and Jess out, screaming for Laura. There was no reply – or, at least, he didn’t hear anything, he couldn’t with everyone shouting and his senses overwhelmed by the scent of burnt wood and charred flesh and the cacophonous noise of screams and shouts and the roar of the fire – and he sobbed for breath even as he led the rearing horses out of the stables and to a safe distance away. Tying them still, he turned back to the inn, ready to charge in and find his sister, and saw the fabled wolf.

It stood taller than a normal wolf, its shoulder almost as high as Derek’s elbow, with coarse black fur. Red eyes glowed malevolently, but it seemed as if it was in pain more than furious. Derek found those eyes pinning him, the weight of the alpha’s will holding him in place. Derek’s vision was blurred, eyes running with tears from the smoke and from the fear of losing Laura, his chest heaving and juddering as he tried to suppress coughs and pants, and he was filthy from the smoke and still had horse hair and straw all over him. Still he stood, unable to move, until someone – that werewolf from before, Scott – slammed into him from behind.

Once their eye contact had been broken, the wolf snarled low and deep in its – his – throat, and disappeared into the flames. Shaking from the broken spell, he pushed up off the floor only to see someone standing over him. A woman. Blond hair. Curvy, powerful, a long, rich dress floating about her ankles. And though he hadn’t seen this woman since she was fifteen and he nine, he remembered her scent.

“ _Witch_ ,” he snarled.

She cocked her head and smiled. “Puppy,” she crooned. “Are you another one of my pet wolf’s lost cubs? He loses them so easily.”

Derek’s eyes flashed blue, and he leapt at her.

With a laugh, she threw her hand up and he slammed into a shield of some kind, the air knocked from his lungs. Panting, dazed, he looked up to see that her eyes had sharpened with recognition.

“No, you’re not one of mine, are you?” she asked, and she crooked a finger. It felt like the air itself tightened itself around his throat and made itself into a leash for her, a leash she tugged and managed to drag his body forward effortlessly. “But we do know one another. I’ve only ever met two wolves with blue eyes and you, Hale, are the only one not in my kennel right now. Does that mean your sister’s around here somewhere?”

Derek smirked at the witch as best he could, considered she was dragging him on the end of an invisible rope and he was still bleary-eyed and heavy-chested from the smoke. “What makes you think,” he gasped through pants and coughs, “I’d tell you anything about her?”

“Oh, I’ll force it out of you soon enough,” she began, which was when Laura launched herself at the witch’s back and knocked her ass over tits.

The leash around Derek’s throat loosened and immediately he twisted around and slammed into the dark form he’d seen coming out of the corner of his eye. The alpha wolf snarled, and claws scored down Derek’s face and side.

Derek’s roar was pained even as he dug his claws in and shoved against the barrel chest, keeping the wolf from helping its master and letting Laura have a crack at the witch. The gashes continued to sting and pain him, and he ended up being thrown from the wolf’s back into a wagon. It splintered around him and left him dazed.

His sister’s scream brought him around, and he staggered upright and managed to catch sight of Laura pinned beneath the wolf, the witch standing over her. Without thinking about it, he transformed, black fur sprouting down the back of his neck in a short ruff, claws lengthening, nose and face shifting as a muzzle started to protrude and stop once there was enough room for fangs to drop.

Heaving a breath, he charged.

The witch saw him coming, of course, and shot a spell in his direction. He rolled to one side and sprang up – gymnastics mattered, Laura, take _that_ – jumped over the next spell, and crashed into the alpha’s throat and neck.

With a howl, the alpha staggered back, tried to shake Derek off, but Derek was gripping on too closely, riding the alpha like a fucking horse, hanging on for life, flexing his claws ever deeper into the junction of the wolf’s shoulder and neck and in the meat of the alpha’s neck, trying to hit the jugular vein. The alpha twisted once, turning and catching Derek’s left leg in his jaws, shredding and snapping bone. With a snarl of pain, Derek dragged his legs out of the alpha’s reach and clung tighter. No matter how much the alpha turned or jerked, its teeth no longer could reach Derek. So, instead, the alpha shook like a dog and slammed its back into the nearest wall, and Derek snarled, double-vision going quadruple.

The alpha leapt into the air.

Vertigo and a sudden feeling of weightlessness nearly had Derek falling off. Certainly he never had expected an alpha to jump as high as the roof of a _house_. He and Laura would have to have a discussion about alpha abilities, he thought giddily as he clung with all his strength as the alpha launched off the roof to another and nearly shook Derek off again.

The next few minutes grew worse and worse as the alpha jumped his way through the town, Derek losing a few more precious centimeters of grip with each rough landing, vision greying out from the pain, concussion, and general vertigo. When the alpha ended up in the woods and trees surrounding the town and crushed Derek into a solid tree trunk, Derek gave up the ghost and slid limply off the alpha’s back, vision going black.

 

* * *

“Can’t _you_ drag him down?”

“Dude, I’m not clambering up there. You’re the wolfy superhuman – _you_ get him.”

“He _hates_ me.”

“He does not.”

“You weren’t there when I was asking him if he wanted help. _Help_ , Stiles. And he looked at me as if I was going to run off with their horses and slaughter them.”

“You _do_ run off with horses. Sometimes.”

“Yeah, but I don’t _slaughter_ them!”

Derek cracked open his eyes and groaned when light stabbed into his pupils. His head felt funny, too heavy and too… swollen.

The voices fell silent.

“ _You_ go up there,” one of them whispered.

“ _You_.”

Very slowly, Derek squinted one eye open. Again, light assaulted his sensitive eyes, and he whimpered but in that brief moment he realized something was fundamentally wrong. The sun was _below_ him.

It took him a moment, past the pounding in his sides and back and head (pain, pain that was wholly unfamiliar to him), to realize he was staring both at his knees and at the sky, and that the ground was somewhere above (below) him.

A major battle took place in his head when he craned his neck and squinted down (up) at the floor.

“Dude, he moved.”

“No he – aw fuck he did, well shit. See what you did?”

“What _I_ did? What the hell—”

“Shut. The fuck. Up,” Derek growled through gritted teeth.

The two voices were both vaguely familiar and totally strange, and while he could make out two humanoid shapes standing below him, and pick up intoxicating scents that were highly tantalizing, and hear young male voices, it still took him criminally long to figure out that Stiles and Scott were both staring up at him from the forest floor, and that he was hanging upside down in a tree, one leg curled over a branch and the other leg wedged in a painfully tight V of two branches and the tree trunk.

After a few moments of blessed silence, one of them called up, “You need any help getting down?”

“I’m fine,” he grunted, unmoving. He was worried if he did move, he’d throw up, and end up getting vomit in his nostrils or something equally unpleasant. Hell, after last night’s beating, he might end up choking and dying on it.

More moments of silence, and he let his eyes drift shut because he was so goddamned tired and in so much pain that he didn’t want to move. This, however, was interrupted by another call, from the same person.

“You don’t look fine. In fact, you look pretty beat up to me.”

“Would you just fuck off?” he grumbled under his breath.

There was whispering below him, loud and harsh and defensive, but he didn’t care enough to pay attention to it. Right now he was in pain, his wounds weren’t closing and were making him light-headed, and fuck it if he knew why.

 _Laura_.

He didn’t know where Laura was. She had been beside him and that witch had been there, and he’d knocked the alpha off of her and away, clung to the alpha’s back as it leapt from rooftop to tree to roof to tree until he’d been shaken loose. Had it gone back for her? Had the witch taken Laura? _Killed_ Laura?

His panic ratcheted up his breathing and heartbeat, enough that below him, Scott made a low sound and began to ask if he needed help – but before Scott could either finish the question or Derek snarl an answer, Derek had jerked and shifted enough that he fell from his perch and hit the branch underneath him.

“Ouch, dude, you okay?”

Derek fell the rest of the way out of the tree and bit back a shout of pain when his bad leg hit the earth.

“Aw fuck,” Scott muttered, immediately bending down and gripping Derek’s shoulders. “Stiles, help me get him up.”

“Laura,” Derek gasped.

“Let’s worry about you, dude, seriously, I thought you were a werewolf, aren’t you supposed to heal?”

He was, and he could still feel blood sluggishly trickling out of the cuts on his face from the alpha’s claws, feel the heat and pain from the claw marks that were scored down his side, and his leg still was broken and torn up from the alpha’s teeth, but none of that mattered now except finding Laura and making sure she was okay.

Or, at least, that’s what he tried to do, but when he moved to stand up, his leg folded beneath him and he was left gasping for air on the ground.

“You need to heal him,” Scott muttered on Derek’s right.

Other hands gripped Derek’s left arm. “I can’t just _poof_ -heal someone, Scott, and you know that. Especially since he’s a freaking werewolf and I think he really should be healing on his own, don’t you?”

“He’s our best chance at finding out what’s happening,” Scott pointed out. “Plus – you know what we discussed yesterday.”

Stiles let out a large, dramatic sigh, and then leaned forward close into Derek’s personal space, and Derek found himself gazing into very warm, very deep honey-gold eyes. “Look, man, you’re in and out of it, and I get that you wanna check on your big sis, but right now, we gotta get you in shape to do that, yeah? I can tell you right now that Scotty here grabbed your sister so last _we_ saw her, the witch hadn’t gotten her, and she was pretty beat up and asking about _you_ which is why we’re here in the forest, looking for you. The witch, by the way, wasn’t pretty happy that you guys disappeared, but even witches have difficulty standing up to arrows and bullets, and luckily Scott’s ex here is a great shot—”

“Stiles, I think we should just heal him,” Scott murmured close enough that Derek could hear the fondness in his voice. “You’re overwhelming him.”

“Ah.” Stiles’ head bobbed and then he tapped at Derek’s cheek, dragging Derek’s gaze back to him. “Okay, so we’re going to take you to some springs that have natural healing powers and boost my ability to heal you. That alright with you?”

It was nice that Stiles asked and explained, even if Derek wasn’t aware enough to answer Stiles or make sense of the words, but he nodded weakly because he got the gist of it – Laura was okay, for the most part. Not dead. Not taken by the witch. And Derek was in too much pain to suck it up and get back to her in the way he wanted to right this moment. Between Stiles on one side, and Scott on another, they got Derek’s arms draped over their necks and helped support him through the woods.

Derek would forever and always maintain that the reason they smelled so good, so damn interesting that more than once he caught his head lolling from one side to the other, trying to inhale a deeper sniff of the musk that so captivated him, was because he was delirious from the pain. He didn’t have a lot of – okay, no, that was wrong, he had a very wide and varied relationship with pain, but he wasn’t used to having pain _stick around_ like this. Pain appeared like a spike, spread over his body, and then settled into his bones as a deep ache that would randomly flare up as his body took care of the pain, handled it, and healed it.

This was a different kind of pain; his body would reach and try to fix the cuts, bring fresh attention to the pain, only to fail. This continuous reach and failure kept him constantly aware of the pain.

It felt like wolfsbane, actually, without the worsening of symptoms.

With that analogy, it actually became easier to handle the pain, think past it. With wolfsbane, he knew that the poisoning would spread, it would get worse, and he’d have to somehow handle that without a counteragent to neutralize the poison. Here, it wouldn’t ever get worse, and just that knowledge made it a little more bearable. This realization allowed him to focus more on the world around him, compartmentalize it and deal with it. Which meant that he was much more aware when Stiles and Scott began taking off his clothes.

“What – wait, fuck – what the hell?” Derek gasped, squirming away and falling badly on his leg, which made him yelp and fall on his ass.

“Oh good, he’s more awake now, which will make this _so_ much easier,” Stiles said, at the same time Scott squatted down in front of Derek.

“You gotta be naked for this part, Derek. That cut on your side goes down too low to keep anything on. And we’re all guys here, right?”

Derek let out a sharp laugh, shaking his head no. “That’s the worst way to word it. For fuck’s sake, you’re both what, fourteen, fifteen?”

“Fuck you, man, I’m seventeen,” Stiles grumbled. “Look, there’s a bit of an ulterior motive here, but believe me, we aren’t that hard up that we’d coerce you to do anything you didn’t want to do.”

Scott shot an amused look at Stiles before returning his attention to Derek, and Derek really didn’t know what to make of this. After all, there was a very good reason he’d been ignoring Scott since Scott jumped into Laura’s arms the two of them had been buddy-buddy last night (was it really just last night? Fuck, this whole thing had gone sideways way too fucking fast). Scott smelled like – like catnip would to a cat. Attractive and enticing and far too dangerous for Derek’s health. But the scent only ever meant that the kid was _compatible_ with Derek – it didn’t mean Derek had to agree to it and just fall into bed with him.

And the kid _was a kid_. Let’s not forget that part, Derek told himself.

“Okay, bad way to word it since we’re both bi,” Scott acceded, “but seriously, man, you don’t have anything we haven’t seen before. But Stiles is the only one who really needs to be in the water with you. Okay? I’ll stay right here on the bank, dressed and everything. And Stiles will keep his boxers on.”

“Wait, what?” Stiles said, already half-naked and thumbs hooked on his trousers’ waistband. “Scott, man, if I wear the boxers that means I gotta be boxers- _less_ until I get back to the cabin. I don’t think you realize how much wool _irritates_ the hell out of me!”

“I hear you complain about it every time you have to wear those pants; it won’t be anything new,” Scott replied placidly, and Derek suddenly found him in sudden sympathy with Scott, who had to deal with Stiles’ forceful personality and somehow still managed to remain calm and collected. Laura wasn’t half as difficult as Stiles was acting right now and Derek could barely handle her.

“Whatever, dude, are you getting in, Derek? The longer this takes the longer it’ll take for you to get back to town.”

Derek could physically pull himself to the edge, but he couldn’t walk there under his own power. Staring at the bank for a minute, he looked at the two of them and shook his head. “I don’t like this idea anymore.”

“No one likes this idea anymore because you successfully sucked the fun out of it, fun-sucker,” Stiles grumbled, but he finished stripping down to his boxers and then moved to Derek’s side. “We’ll get you stripped of everything and you can take off your boxers once you’re in the water, how’s that? Scott will just sit there and I’ll just watch you flail about on a broken leg trying to get off your own clothing because for a werewolf you have extreme body modesty that I don’t understand.”

Squinting at Stiles, Derek ground out, “Thank you.”

“Behave, Stiles,” Scott joked, moving to a pile of rocks and sitting down on one of the more flat ones.

“Yeah, yeah,” Stiles muttered, but for all that Derek had worried about a teenager taking advantage of his inability to really fight back, Stiles’ hands were quick and competent, clinical. Once Derek’s clothes were folded neatly besides Stiles’ own clothes, Stiles helped Derek up to his feet and gently helped him into the springs.

Being lowered into the water was a surprise, mostly because there was no shock of going from the air to water. Derek made a small noise of surprise and Stiles flashed him a wicked grin.

“Yup, heated springs. They’re also on a ley point of the land, and I think a while back there were unicorns here because the water’s one of the purest sources I’ve found. I don’t know what’s keeping you from healing but the water and the heat ought to help me work my stuff.”

“You’re a witch,” Derek said, and there was still that familiar reservation and fear, that underlying terror of having his will stripped away. But it wasn’t – it wasn’t overwhelming anymore, which in and of itself was strange.

Stiles paused briefly in his motions to help Derek stand on his good leg on the rock-and-mud bottom of the spring. “Yeah,” he said slowly, “though to be clear, there are such a thing as good witches. Witches that don’t need magic from the blood of children – or the blood of anyone, really – to do magic. You hunt witches for a living – you know that the blood isn’t for spells.”

“Of course I know that,” Derek said immediately.

Stiles blinked at Derek a moment. “Well, then, what the hell, man? That’s why the town hates my guts, but if you know that, what the hell?”

“The town thinks witches use blood for spells? Blood-spells are rare as hell. What made them think that?” Derek asked, confused. The fact that witch hunters were called in meant that the mayor, at least, had a basic understanding of witches. If witches really were doing blood-spells – a dangerous magic that most didn’t fuck with because the slightest miscalculation _always_ hurt the castor – there would be a lot more disappearances…

Well, that explained why the Sheriff was involved, at least, and why the people were baying for blood. And it looked like they had a convenient scapegoat in Stiles, though if Stiles really was a witch, why was the town allowing him to continue living? The best witch was a dead witch, and that wasn’t just him talking – that was a proverb most towns had in some form or another.

“Oh, no, bucko, I asked you a question first,” Stiles snarked, sliding into the water beside Derek and floating back a bit to give Derek some space while dragging Derek out of his thoughts. “What’s your problem with me, man? With witches in general? If you know our spells don’t need blood—”

“Witches feed on blood to live,” Derek growled. “They can control minds and hearts without an individual’s permission. And they are _cowardly_ , hiding behind spells and manufactured strength.”

Stiles narrowed his eyes at Derek. “You might not wanna call me a coward when I’m in a position to hold you under water,” he growled back.

The threat itself made Derek hold himself tight, stiff, upper lip curling as he focused on Stiles with laser-like intensity, evaluating every movement he made.

“He’s not going to do anything to you, Derek – I won’t let him,” Scott called from the rocks.

“I don’t get it, Derek, I really don’t get it. Don’t get _you_. You have – fuck, you walk in and rescue me. Your sister helps Scott, gives him the knowledge he asked for, which is more than can be said of most people, unfortunately. You didn’t seem that bad or upset when you were with me in the market. Though – dude, you’re shaking.”

Derek looked down at his hands, aware they were trembling. Fuck. He wasn’t supposed to miss – how many doses of his antidote had he missed? Supposed to have it three times a day, didn’t get it last night, didn’t get it this morning, it was obviously creeping on to noon—

Strong hands gripped his shoulders, held him upright, and Scott was there, concerned. “Dude, you’re even paler than you were when we found you this morning.”

“Wolfsbane,” Derek rasped.

Scott and Stiles stared at one another and then back at him. “…Wolfsbane?” Stiles repeated uncertainly.

“My – my belt. Needle?” Derek asked, and well, now he knew why he hadn’t been healing as well as he should have been – with his body focused on trying to keep him alive from the wolfsbane poisoning it didn’t have time to focus on his other wounds.

Stiles splashed over to the bank, wet hands scrabbling at the folded clothes until he came up with a needle. “This smells like basilbane,” Stiles said, frowning.

“Antidote. Flushes wolfsbane out – Stiles,” Derek finally said, breathing in deep. “It’s a miracle I’m still alive.”

Stiles didn’t waste any more time, swimming over to Derek’s side, tapping at Derek’s arm to find a vein. When the plunger depressed, it wasn’t the immediate relief that Derek was used to but a painful burning sensation that spread through his body. He groaned, hunching over and trying not to mess up his leg more than it already was.

“If these are healing springs,” Scott began, still holding Derek steady.

“Right, right,” Stiles muttered, drifting back and closing his eyes. “Okay. You might feel a little – weird.”

‘Weird’ wasn’t the sensation Derek would use – unsettling, perhaps, and definitely strange, like a cool wash of air blew through his body and touched him down to his organs.

“Shit,” Stiles muttered. “Let’s try that again.”

Scott leaned forward, and Derek tried to hold his breath, because Scott was practically pressed up against his back, skin warm where his hands held onto Derek’s shoulders and breath puffing against Derek’s cheek as he leaned forward in concern. “You okay, Stiles?”

“Yeah, yeah – I’m good. Give me a second.”

Again that wash of air, only this time it felt like a forceful wind, and Derek staggered back and sagged in Scott’s arms. “F-fuck,” he whispered.

“Man, something’s fucking with you at the most basic level,” Stiles said tightly. “I can’t—”

“Don’t worry about that. That’s what the needles are for,” Derek grunted.

Stiles looked at him closely. “That’s like – it feels like – like poison. Stored in your bones and organs and slowly diffusing. It’s really deep in there.”

“And basilbane mixed with a bit of wolfsbane clears it out. Only wolfsbane can undo wolfsbane damage to a wolf, but basilbane allows it to be effective even when it’s injected into my veins,” Derek replied, and he could feel his healing start to speed up, start to handle the cuts on his forehead, the gouges in his side and down his hip, and his bad leg.

Next to his head, Scott leaned the side of his head against the top of Derek’s. “How’d that happen?” he asked quietly, and Derek tried to pretend that he didn’t notice the stroking motion Scott’s fingers were tracing over his biceps.

Derek stared at Stiles, at the way Stiles watched him and Scott, and wondered what it meant when two people smelled so similar at the base, even if their overlaying scents were distinct. He knew, of course, from fairytales and the few times he and Laura had managed to find a werewolf who was willing to share information with them, that werewolves had people they were compatible with and those people smelled much better than everyone else, to werewolves. But – honestly, he hadn’t ever expected to _find_ someone like that. It was a fairly common happenstance, but…

But. He had never thought it could happen to _him_.

And they were both so _young_. He hadn’t been kidding, when he had looked at Scott and assumed he was six to seven years older than Scott. They were both still trying to figure out their place in the world. Who was Derek to force himself into their lives, when he and Laura would move on once they figured out the problem here, and they would stay here?

“Derek?” Stiles asked quietly.

Realizing he’d been asked a question, and that Scott was a lot more obvious now, in his soothing strokes, Derek swallowed. Laura had known what had happened to him, of course, by virtue of undergoing it and having her own injection she needed only once a day, but he’d never… verbalized any of it. To anyone.

With a quiet sigh, Derek turned his head to meet Stiles’ curious and respectful gaze. “When I was seven, a witch and her apprentice captured me and my sister and held us as her thralls for about two years,” he said quietly. “I don’t know why, or what for. I don’t know why she didn’t just kill us, but we killed her. I was barely nine years old and Laura had just turned thirteen. And her – _experiments_ left me like this. Laura, too, but she – she doesn’t have it as bad as I do.”

Scott rubbed his nose against the top of Derek’s ear, and Stiles’ face fell. “Look, I – I get that you’re like, a drug for Scott. He said he could barely think around you. And so – I mean, I get that you don’t like witches, so if you two—”

“We’ll find a way to make this work for _all_ of us, Stiles,” Scott rumbled low in Derek’s ear, and Derek found himself shivering, craving more touch, more of Scott’s attention—

 _Stop that. You’re acting like an overeager pup_.

Clearing his throat, he ruthlessly shoved down his desire and tried to not to think about his dick that was suddenly standing at attention. “What do you mean, make this work?” he croaked.

With a pleased sigh, Scott pulled back a bit, giving Derek some room to stand on his own if he wanted to. And, well, Derek didn’t actually want to, but he was older than these kids ( _not that older_ , his mind tried to supply, but he quashed that thought as thoroughly as possible) and he was supposed to be an adult. Carefully, he took his weight on his legs, the water helping his bad leg – it was healing, but still going a lot slower than he expected it to, probably because his body was still trying to deal with the poison – support his weight.

“I mean,” Scott said placidly, “I may not know much about being a werewolf, but I will say that I figured out why Stiles smelled so goddamn good a while back, and we’re pretty much partners, in every sense of the word.”

Derek tried not to let his resignation show on his face, keeping instead a blank countenance.

“When I could smell something similar on Laura that two days ago, in that square where she caught me pickpocketing – well. For a moment, I thought that she must have been near Stiles, and I wondered why it didn’t smell exactly like Stiles,” Scott continued, perched on the edge of the bank with his arms folded on his knees, leaning forward. “Then, when I trailed her – and, coincidentally, you – back to the mayor’s office, and you came out for your horses, I realized what I smelled on her was _you_. You smelled – indescribable. Amazing. And you didn’t want me around.”

“You’re, what, sixteen?” Derek scoffed. “Of course I didn’t want you around. You’re too young. _Both_ of you are too young.”

Scott shook his head. “I’m eighteen; Stiles is seventeen. I get that we might not be as mature as you, Derek, but we’re pretty damn mature and I can guarantee you that we’re willing to try and make this work. We _both_ want you. Well, I wanted you right off the bat, and I went back to Stiles and told him, so Stiles went to see what you were like in the market. But we want you, Derek, okay?”

Slowly, Derek shook his head, having difficult comprehending the entirety of the two of them. “You’re – you can’t just see someone on the street and jump into their bed.”

“Happens all the time, though admittedly more in bars or backstreets than the square in front of the mayor’s office,” Stiles said casually, splashing a little as he moved to be more directly in Derek’s line of sight. “Now, I’m not sure we _can_ make this work, since you hate witches and I am most definitely a witch, but I’m willing to try. And hey, if it turns out we don’t like it, well, we had fun, right?”

Derek stared at the two of them, brain trying to catch up to what was happening. “You… you both want sex. With me. Right now?”

“Well, we were going to try to woo you and everything, but really, this is too good of an opportunity to pass up – you need to be naked for me to heal you, I’m practically naked, and Scott can _be_ naked in a few seconds.” Stiles gave Derek a hopeful smile. “But we’re not going to make you do anything you don’t want to. You say the word and I try to fix up your veins one more time and then we leave.”

And – that’s what Derek should do. He knew that. He should just say no, get it over with, get back to Laura and focus on this case and why the witch from their nightmares was still around and alive and what she was doing.

But he couldn’t make himself say it.

Slowly – as if expecting Derek to jerk away – Stiles moved forward and carefully put his hands on Derek’s upper arms. Not really gripping; just… holding. Derek dry swallowed and glanced over at Scott, who was quickly stripping off wet clothes – he’d obviously simply jumped into the springs to keep Derek upright without removing anything – and throwing the clothes onto the rocks nearby.

Things like this didn’t happen to him. It was both very strange and very liberating, all at once, and Derek wasn’t a virgin but he also had never been with more than one person at a time before, so there was that. Stiles dragged his attention back to what was happening right then and there, as strong hands curled around Derek’s arms, thumbs stroking over the muscle there. Derek licked his lips and gave himself permission to breathe in the heady, intoxicating scents of his mates.

 _Mates_.

It wasn’t rare to find one, of course, but to find two? At the same time? And _both_ wanted him, and wanted each other?

That was probably a lot rarer. Not that Derek would know, considering the fact that he had Laura and that was it, and Laura had had a few paramours that were possible mates but she never stuck with them long enough to start the bonding process.

Scott came up behind Derek again, arms curling around Derek’s waist. Derek should feel – should feel the adult here, he felt, but Scott was taller than him and Stiles was his size, and it was easy to feel Scott breathing in his ear and let his eyes flutter shut.

“Yeah,” Stiles whispered. “You’re just – perfect. Shit.”

Scott growled, low in Derek’s ear, and Derek could feel when Stiles’ magic reached in and sped along the healing of his leg. Now able to stand on his own… he found he didn’t want to. Oh, he kept enough weight on his legs to keep himself from crushing Scott – who might be taller and as broad-shouldered, but Derek had at least twenty-five to fifty pounds on him in muscles – but he kept his neck tilted back, up, even as he twisted his head and tentatively kissed at the corner of Scott’s mouth.

With a huff of laughter, Scott changed the angle of the kiss and deepened it, long and involved enough to make Derek’s head spin.

When Derek blinked open dazed eyes, he saw Scott’s eyes a possessive gold and Stiles staring hungrily at the two of them.

“We probably really should have waited for a bed,” Stiles rasped, and without thinking Derek reached out and took Stiles hand, dragged him closer. Stiles came willingly, and while Derek couldn’t quite drown out the fear in the back of his mind, his base instincts clamoring out that Stiles was closer and had more of an advantage here than that witch and her apprentice had had years ago, he could let Scott’s slow touches and Stiles’ rapt gaze drown out that worrying voice.

Scott shifted behind Derek and then Derek felt Scott’s fingers tugging down Derek’s boxers. When Derek stiffened, absolutely sure he wasn’t ready for this to go all the way, Scott stroked his thumb soothingly over Derek’s hip. “Just wait a minute,” Scott murmured, shifting, and then Stiles was pressed against Derek’s front, his dick sliding against Derek’s.

Derek let out a soft gasp, hands instinctively moving from Stiles’ hand to Stiles’ waist, holding Stiles against him.

With a smirk, Stiles rolled his hips, letting his dick drag up and down against Derek’s cock.

Derek moaned, and then let out a sharp whine in the back of his throat when he felt Scott’s dick slip into the crack of Derek’s ass, sliding along the cleft and sometimes nudging against Derek’s balls, sometimes pressing against the small of Derek’s back.

“There we go,” Scott rumbled, and his hips thrust against Derek’s ass.

With a stuttered cry, Derek’s hips bucked forward, thrusting against Stiles’ dick and groin, which made Stiles let out a pleased groan. Then it was just heat and friction, the sensations of water and the slickness making everything ten times better. Derek, thankfully, did _not_ come first – that was Scott, who grabbed Derek’s hips suddenly and _ground_ into Derek, a low, continuous growl deep in his throat, and then Stiles was babbling about how _good_ Scott looked losing control like that and coming just from rubbing off on someone’s ass. So Derek, hauled Stiles in close, kissed him deep and filthy, and then Stiles’ body seized against Derek’s, a keening note high in the back of his throat making Derek groan in response.

Scott was draped heavy against Derek’s back, Stiles slumped against Derek’s front, and Derek was _right there_ goddammit, when Scott’s hand cupped Derek’s balls and Stiles’ hand fisted Derek’s dick.

Derek came like a teenager, stars dancing at the back of his vision as he gasped out his completion.

He came back to himself when Stiles made a grumpy sound of displeasure, realizing that Scott was tugging the two of them over to the bank.

“You’re gonna drown,” Scott grumbled at Stiles, and Derek was logy enough to not question the implicit expectation of obedience – just followed Scott’s direction to the edge of the pond’s bank and pulled Stiles along with him. Stiles, curled into Derek’s chest and nuzzling into Derek’s pecs, muttered unhappily a bit as Derek leaned against the bank and shifted to let Stiles curl up against the grass.

Scott looked at the two of them, squinting a bit before shaking his head slowly. “We were supposed to ease you into the idea,” he said ruefully. “We can’t make you stay, obviously. And, hell, with the Sheriff around you have good reason to leave the town. But – Derek, we do both like you, and we’d like to be with you for as long as you’ll let us.”

Licking his lips, Derek glanced over at Stiles, who had taken the opportunity to crawl out of the water and sprawl, naked and boneless, in the summer’s sun against the grass. Turning back to Scott, he replied roughly, “I don’t want to screw things up between you two.”

“So don’t,” Scott said easily.

Derek stared at Scott a long moment, wishing he could tilt his head back, bare his throat. He and Laura were both lone wolves, though Laura was a beta and he an omega, and he hadn’t had an alpha in so long… hadn’t had someone to worry about him and give him direction and make him feel like he _belonged_.

“I can’t promise past our job here,” Derek said quietly.

“Then just for the amount of time you’re here,” Scott replied, almost instantly. “Just that amount of time.”

That… wasn’t difficult to promise. Derek found himself slowly nodding. He wanted this, so much, even if it was only for a short while.

Stiles mumbled something that sounded happy and curled his naked body around Derek’s. Well, Derek still had his boxers (tangled around his knees, embarrassingly enough), and Stiles didn’t. Which—

“Stiles, what happened to your boxers?” Scott asked, staring at Stiles a moment before turning to look back at the springs.

It was a small rustle, barely there, but Derek had built his life off of killing and hunting creatures that came out of the woods. In a flash, he was up on his legs, boxers yanked up, teeth lengthening and eyes shining blue as he turned to face the alpha wolf.

In the light of the day, the alpha looked almost obscene, a horror creature from the depths of a child’s nightmare cast into bright relief from the sun. Stiles jerked and flailed, falling into the water, and Scott was suddenly right by Derek’s shoulder, a snarl forming deep in his throat.

But no. Derek couldn’t let Scott do this, couldn’t let Scott and Stiles get wrapped up in this fight, not when the alpha had nearly taken down both himself and Laura last night. These kids never had any formal training, never had to fight desperately for their lives every month or so, the way he and his sister had. They would not fare well in a straight-out fight.

“Scott, you need to take Stiles and get out of here,” Derek said quietly, shaking out his shoulders and feeling the change itch through his body.

Scott didn’t move, but before Derek could snap at him, the alpha – changed. Not in the way that Derek expected a werewolf to change, but the body shifted. No longer was it a monstrous wolf, four or five times larger than a normal wolf with blazing eyes, but it was more hunched over, humanoid. Long arms, misshapen and awkward, the front toes switching into something mildly resembling fingers, grew out of front feet, and the hind legs elongated, became more human-like. It was disturbing, some perverted mix of human and wolf that Derek could _feel_ was not natural at all. It was like someone had reached down into the wolf’s abilities and twisted it because it amused them.

Which, well. Derek knew what that apprentice had been like when he’d been under her ‘tender’ care at the age of seven. He could easily see her perverting this simply because she could.

“Poor little pup,” the wolf rasped, and its voice was rough, broken, like it had been dragged over broken glass and spat out with gravel. “So far away from his sister. Whatever shall he do without her?”

Derek saw red. Before Scott could say anything, Derek launched himself at the wolf, slamming into it and knocking the wolf back into one of the trees on the edge of the clearing.

“Where is she?!” he demanded, shouting. “What did you do to her?”

The wolf – Derek could swear it was _smirking_ at him – suddenly gripped the back of Derek’s neck, claws plunging into the thick of the muscle and spine. Derek froze.

_\--‘Good boy, aren’t you just the sweetest boy?’ and the words are thick, cloying, he hates them, hates his mistress with all his heart and she laughs and laughs and laughs because she knows he hates her and yet can’t do anything about it—_

_\--Pain, day in and day out, he can’t get away from it, trapped forever in this form, unable to break the curse his mistress put on him, unable to keep from following her orders, hating her—_

_\--A boiling cauldron, emitting colored fumes, as he provides more food for her slaughter, hating himself almost as much as her at this point—_

_\--They sit chained up, the remnants of his family, blank-eyed dolls that had been broken by one to many spells, only he and one other remain alive, truly alive, if he could call this living—_

_\--They come to the town and they smell of family of home and he can’t keep from seeking them out, seeking this one out, because his mistress has laid a trap for the girl and if the boy doesn’t go to her aid soon—_

Derek jerked back, heartbeat wild, unsteady, eyes wide and unseeing as he tried to get a handle of the _ragehatepainfearRAGE_ that swirled through him, made the ground beneath him shift and slide like quicksand. Two firm arms gripped his shoulders, and he looked behind him to see Scott there, still naked from their time in the springs and yet unselfconscious, unashamed, a pillar of strength. Behind him, Stiles had pulled up his woolen trousers and held a ball of light cradled in his hands, glaring fiercely at the alpha who pushed his way up off the ground.

“If you listen closely,” the alpha whispered-growled, “you can hear her calling for her baby brother. And if you can hear her, that means others can too.”

With that, the alpha twisted back into his full wolf shape, and leapt away into the woods like a mutant frog, powerful legs propelling him over small trees and through the brush.

Derek turned to Scott with barely disguised panic. In the sudden stillness of the clearing, he can hear Laura calling for him. Faint, but he can hear her, hear her repeating his name.

“Go,” Scott murmured, nodding in the direction of Laura’s voice. “When you’re done, come back? We live on the outskirts of town, just a few miles north of the inn.”

Nodding tightly, Derek grabbed his trousers – they were torn, and bloody, from his broken leg and the fight last night, but better than running around in the woods in nothing but his dripping wet boxers – and dragged them on over his hips before grabbing his gear belt, coat, and assorted knives he’d had hidden on his person. Strapping the knives in and the belt around his waist, he threw the black treated leather jacket over his shoulders and then jammed his feet into his boots.

It took him only a few seconds – certainly under a minute – to put himself together, and looked over at Scott and Stiles.

Scott still was nude, though that was more a function of his soaked clothes than anything, and Stiles was pulling on the rest of his clothes. Catching Derek’s look, Stiles smiled sympathetically. “Go ahead; he’s probably talking out of his ass, but she’s probably worried about you.”

Inclining his head, Derek took off into the woods.


End file.
